Once again I am stuck and think that I can’t write because I am hung up on some boy. Once again he is a boy that I have had all but one date with and of course now I am turning into a crazy!

So rather than not write anything I thought I would just write this.

Often I imagine a scenario before going on a date, and usually this is that said date will go extremely well. We will fall in love and we will live… well you know how it ends. We all grew up watching Disney. It’s the main reason we are so mislead in our romantic expectations.

Then, I go on the date and if it goes well, which I’m pretty sure this one did, after a day or so of ‘loose’ correspondence (from his side) and hopelessly witty try too hard messages (from me) I will assume that the fate of the relationship, which never was, will never be. I imagine that my last encounter will be the last and I will never meet another guy who quite stands up to the measure of this … Man… Who I barely know… Are you following?

Just because I deem it a possible this potentially heart-breaking notion will now be the future.

I’ll send messages that don’t need to be sent, possibly drunk dial him, inviting him out on a second date without having a reply to my first message. In short I will become the self fulfilling crazy prophesy which drives him away.

I will henceforth be able to focus on nothing else but countless ways to stalk him over the Internet.

In this case, the Internet stalking is what got me into this mess.

Before the date we were casually talking. I was about medium excited and he was coming off as a low to medium ‘catch’. He only had three photos of himself so it was really hard to gage whether or not I actually fancied him and if he had all of his original teeth.

I decided to tap his name into Facebook. He’d just revealed he was French, which I should have cottoned on to as his name was spelt just so. When I found him on Facebook his surname had one of those seemingly intelligent accents over one of the vowels… If letters can appear intelligent.

I recognise that name I thought. Why?

I never usually Google a date. There really is very little point. Apart from the amusing truth that there’s usually a porn star with the same name, and you get to see a strangers ‘dick pic’, there is very little to glean from the Google search.

But not this time.

He was a CEO and Founder of a highly successful company whose posters decorated the insides of both London’s tubes and their stations. I recognised him from an article I had glimpsed once in Time Out. A face, which had made me more intent than usual on looking at the pictures, rather reading the words.

He was a hot sexy successful French man and somehow through the power of an expertly laid out profile I had tricked him into going on a date with me. Me! Currently heating up Chinese left overs whilst trying to apply false eye lashes. I couldn’t even make a proper meal for myself, let alone an entire international company. Why on earth would he want to date me?

I freaked out. Naturally. It is one of the few things at which I am superb.

When I turned up in one of the nice boroughs of London, thankfully fresh out of a cab rather than flustered and ruffled from the tube, I spotted him at the window table of our agreed bar immediately. Oh dear.

It is possible to look one thousand watts better than your profile picture.

As I walked in I felt the tingle of self consciousness throughout my body. When he stood to greet me I felt an extra buzz serge through my spine. Oh good, he’s really, really tall.

He bent to kiss my cheek luckily I remembered he was European and avoided the accidental full frontal lip collision and turned for him to greet my other cheek with a second kiss just in time.

As I sat next to this beautiful man I felt the full depth at which I was in too deep. This thought was perhaps conjured from the shallowest portion of my brain, but it kept me sat at arms length, wondering when he would realise his mistake at inviting me.

Then something happened as we were finishing our first drinks. He ordered our second. I relaxed. He wanted me there. He hadn’t glanced at his watch and been worried about work the next day. Played with his coat on the seat next to him and made some cat related excuses to flee the bar. He wanted to spend longer with me than the time it had taken him to sip his first beer, and I was very happy about that.

Four more times the waiter came and asked if we wanted another drink (I know, table service. I told you, one of the nice boroughs in London.) and four more times I looked at him and said ‘it’s up to you.’ These are important words for me on a first date. I never like to out stay my welcome and I’m never bold enough to assume that I’m not.

By the end of the evening we were both relaxed. Playing a very one sided game of beat the intro with him singing all the wrong words to the jukeboxm, but still looking adorable. Whilst I was probably coming off as a know it all; 80s music is a particular forte of mine.

I was so delirious with how things were going I didn’t even notice when he committed, to me at least, the single most cardinal sin of any date.

He was holding my hand and looking into my eyes from across the table.

Now I have since realised this is quite a nice thing really, and perhaps nicer still as the person holding my hand and staring into my eyes was French. It adds a little, 'Je ne ce quoi', to the whole act. But usually, when I see couples doing this in public, it makes me want to puke. Perhaps I speak entirely as a bitter outsider, but usually I just want to get up on my chair and scream;

“Stop touching each other and eat your food! God Damn It!”

The next thing which happened would usually also make my skin crawl, however, en francis…

…We were practicing French phrases. His, beautifully pronounced, staring at me full in the face. Mine, with my chin ducked and my eyes fixed on my gin and tonic. His stare was intimidating and the way his lips formed vowel sounds made me almost incapable to hear what they were trying to teach me.

He said: “Vous avez de beaux yeux”

Which I knew meant he was telling me I had beautiful eyes. However, for the purposes of not looking like a presumptuous dick, I shook my head ‘no’ when he asked if I understood.

Everything en Francis felt less like a line. Less likely to make me cringe.

The bar ended up locking us in, eventually turning off the lights around us, which we finally took as our cue to leave.

Outside we dithered and shivered and I couldn’t tell you what we talked about as the next thing I remember is him kissing me. I was five gin and tonics deep, but I remember his mouth. Warm and slightly too big for me. But as we kissed everything began to fit. “I could kiss you for five hours” he told me.

I’m pretty sure this is a mistranslation as it makes me laugh as much now as it did then, pressed up against him, on the cold street. And FYI, laughing into a French man’s mouth is not a smart move. He looked at me accusingly like I was an errant school kid so I blurted back;

“Just five?” with a raised eyebrow, at which he smirked and replied, closing in:

“Ok, maybe seven, but I would need a short break.”

When he finally packed me into my cab after I had strenuously declined his I was in heaven.

I had pulled it off: A date with a real man, and a real kiss to end it all.

He winked to me as I pulled away.

No wonder I am hooked and so deliriously incapable to do anything productive with my day until I hear from him.

The worst thing is I am sure that he is not lolloping around feeling the same way.

It was my stepdad who was first to say that I should never think that someone is too good for me. He is one of those amazing people who believes that all humans are capable of whatever they put their minds to. I of course also subscribe to this persuasion, but when it comes to dating, over the past year I feel I have learnt what league I am in. I just don’t see this French …God as my equal.

Isn’t that funny? I will be so quick to speak up for equal rights and opportunity. But love and lust is not an equal playing field. Often the plight is unrequited and hurtful.

I can already feel the bitter sting of the casual phase out. Perhaps the lesson here is to always date someone who seems to like you more than you like them.

But wouldn’t that be no fun?

The question I’m asking is why should I hold this guy so high on his pedestal and not once assume for him to do the same to me?

He dated me, he instigated five rounds of drinks and he kissed me. In fact he would have kissed me for seven hours (with a short break), so why should I believe after a couple of days of minimal communication from a busy man who owns his own internationally successful business that I am mid fatal phase out? Am I that needy? Or jaded? Or am I just right? We’ll see…